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Chapter 2
Testing Your Comprehension
1. Ethics encompasses the study of good and bad, right and wrong, and of sets of moral
principle or values. Classical ethical standards include virtue (the just and equal treatment of
individuals), the categorical imperative (to treat others as you‘d want to be treated), and
utility (to produce the greatest practical benefit for the largest number of people).
Environmental ethics applies ethical standards to environmental problems.
2. Our sphere of ethical concern has expanded in Western cultures as we have become more
wealthy and as science has helped inform our understanding of the world around us.
3. Anthropocentrism is a human-centered view of our relationship with the environment.
Biocentrism, ascribes values based on the effect of actions on all living things. Ecocentrism
ascribes values based on the entire ecosystem, including its abiotic components. The Mirrar
Clan has a decidedly ecocentric environmental perspective.
4. John Muir advocated for the preservation ethic, which holds that we should protect the
natural environment in its pristine, unaltered state. The conservation ethic, championed by
Gifford Pinchot, says we should put natural resources to use but to manage them wisely.
5. Aldo Leopold’s land ethic views humans and the land as members of the same community,
and that this community should be regarded and treated ethically.
6. The environment contributes goods, such as freshwater and fossil fuels, as well as services,
such as waste removal and air purification. It sustains our lives and livelihoods and supports
our economy.
7. Adam Smith suggested that individuals seeking their own benefit would, as an unintended
consequence, bring about benefits to society, as if guided by an “invisible hand.”
Neoclassical economists took more quantitative approaches, considered the psychological
factors underlying human choices, and focused on dynamics of supply and demand.
8. Critics of neoclassical economics point to four of its fundamental assumptions that have
potentially negative effects on the environment: (1) that resources are infinite or
substitutable; (2) that costs and benefits are internal; (3) that growth is good; and (4) that
long-term effects should be discounted. In reality, resources become depleted, costs are often
externalized, limitless growth in a limited environment results in increasingly severe
competition for resources, and the future becomes important as it draws near.
9. In contrast to the assumptions of neoclassical economics (see #8, above), ecological
economics assumes that resources are finite, the future (sustainability) is important,
externalized costs are real, and that growth is not an absolute good but may be desirable or
not, depending on the ecological situation. Ecological economics often uses the economy of
nature as a model for the human economy. Environmental economics adopts the goals of
ecological economics (e.g., sustainability) but tries to achieve them within a neoclassical
economic framework.
10. Contingent valuation is a technique used to quantify the value of ecosystem services by
surveying people to determine how much they would be willing to pay to protect or restore a
resource. A potential weakness of this approach is that people may inflate the values of what
they’d being willing to pay. An alternative method that addresses this weakness is to measure
people’s revealed preferences by collecting data on their actual behavior. For example,
measuring the amount of money and time people spend to travel to and visit a park as a
measure of the value they place on the park itself.
Interpreting Graphs and Data
1. The GDP in 2002 was approximately 500% of the 1952 GDP. The GPI in 2002 was less than
300% of the 1952 GPI. Benefits grew by a bit less than 400% over that time, but
environmental costs grew by more than 500%, and social and economic costs grew by over
1,000%. If costs grow at a faster rate than the GDP and benefits, then a smaller proportion of
the total is left as the GPI. In 1952, the GPI was about half of the GDP plus benefits. In 2002,
it had dropped to about one third.
2. Answers will vary, but should include discussion of the trajectories of each of the
components. One of the areas with the greatest potential for improvement would be to
decrease the growth of social and environmental costs.
3. Environmental costs continue to increase primarily because personal consumption (GDP)
continues to increase, and the added costs are not ascribed socially or economically, but are
externalized to the environment.
Calculating Ecological Footprints
Components of GPI
GDP
Benefits
Environmental Costs
Social and Economic Costs
GPI
U.S. total
in 1952
(trillions of
dollars)
1.2
0.8
0.7
0.3
1.0
Per capita
in 1952
(thousand of
dollars)
7.6
5.1
4.4
1.9
6.3
U.S. total
in 2002
(trillions of
dollars)
6.6
3.2
3.9
3.1
2.8
Per capita
in 2002
(thousand of
dollars)
22.9
11.1
13.5
10.8
9.7
1. Answers will vary.
2. Answers will vary, but are likely to be lower than the average costs.
3. Answers will vary, but may include the benefits from stay-at-home parenting and housework,
which were more common in the 1950s. Environmental costs such as pollution and the
depletion of non-renewable resources have accelerated since 1952. Social and economic costs
such as consumer durable goods and commuting costs have risen sharply.